From Bad to Worse

Usually I am pretty biased about Utah Democrats, after all, I am one of them. But when you have to step down because you where caught shoplifting and then many years later, you try to run over your son-in-law with your car you are out of my favor, to say the least.

[ex-State Rep.] Dionne Halverson, 57, faces a Dec. 30 arraignment for felony aggravated assault.

Deputy Weber County Attorney Dean Saunders ... alleges the incident happened Nov. 16 at the Plain City home of Alex Williams, a Utah Highway Patrol Trooper who is married to Halverson's daughter. He was not injured.

Halverson resigned in 1991 from her second term as a Democratic Utah House member from Ogden after she was arrested for shoplifting nearly $200 worth of clothing.

A security guard at Mervyn's Department Store in Ogden stopped her leaving the store around Christmas with a bag of unpaid clothing. She first denied guilt, then pleaded no contest to a class A misdemeanor, and was fined $350.

A House ethics committee voted to expel her, but passage by the whole House failed by two votes. Instead, she was censured and subsequently resigned.

Thank goodness she lost in the primary/convention in her attempt to come back in 1998.